Birding on my way to Wal-Mart.

As of recently, I've been busy trying to locate a certain bird. It's the Red-Winged Blackbird, Latin name: Agelaius phoeniceus. I first distinctly saw one when I was walking over to Wal-Mart on 88th Avenue just a week and a half ago. My wife bought me the "Compact Guide to British Columbia Birds" and I've been using that as a guide to locating and identifying certain birds that I have seen around the area.



Now the Red-Winged Blackbird holds a certain fascination for me as I've been trying unsuccessfully to get a picture of it with my D50. Of course when I saw it in full plumage during my walk over to Wal-Mart, I had no D50 with me and it happily did it's little "honk-a-ree" call at me. So I say to myself 'Well, I'm going to go get my D50 the next day and come back down and take a picture...if I can locate it again..." Well...sure enough...I get my camera the next day and the bird is nowhere to be seen.

Of course...then today I go wandering down to Wal-Mart to get some Pepsi and sure enough, it's hanging on the high-tension power lines happily going "reet-reet-reet-honk-a-REEEEEEE" Damned bird seemed to be laughing at me. So I took out my L11 and snapped a pic at 3X digital magnification. Well...unfortunately I couldn't get the wing markings but at least I managed to snap an albeit crappy pic of it. I do intend on going down there and nailing that bird with the D50 and 70-300mm f/4-5.6 by the end of this year. No bird is going to laugh at me and get away without it's picture getting snapped.



I also saw some American Robins (turdus migratorius) (why aren't they called "Canadian Robins" since they live in Canada?) and some pine siskins (carduelis pinis) sitting in a tree. I've actually seen more female American Robins than the brighter colored male. I can recall only seeing a male ONCE recently. I used to see them a lot in my youth.



Another bird that I haven't seen recently or very often but saw quite often during my youth is the Stellar's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri). I think one of these days, I have to go walking back up to Thornhill and see if I can locate some to photograph.

But the particular bird on my hitlist right now is that damned Red Winged Blackbird.